Richard Stearman hoping to tame Man City slickers

He stopped Fernando Torres and denied Didier Drogba.

Now he's aiming to make it a blank for Carlos Tevez and Edin Dzeko.

Richard Stearman, the Wolves centre-back who comes alive against the big boys, is a man on a mission at Manchester City tomorrow.

"We seem to perform well against the bigger boys," said Stearman. "Not just me, the back four have performed well against the bigger teams and I've been delighted with the way I've performed against them.

"This league is so ruthless, one chance and it's in the back of the net. You have to be right on your game for 90 minutes. You'll be punished otherwise.

"Any player would improve against better players, and we seem to be coming up against the best week-in, week-out at the moment."

Stearman can't explain why Wolves have excelled against the bigger teams, but being confident helps.

"I don't know why that is, but there's not really a fear in the dressing room — we're confident we can perform against anyone," he said.

"We've proved that against the so-called big teams this season. I think we 'up' our game against them.

"We've not been scared to take on the bigger teams, and in the last game against Chelsea, the whole team performed very well and we deserved the three points.

"That sort of night doesn't leave you quickly, but now it's another big game at Eastlands.

"Certainly against the bigger teams we've stopped them from playing and we've created chances ourselves. It's been enjoyable to play against them.

"I think we've raised expectations because we've picked up more points against the better teams."

Wolves' record of beating Chelsea, Liverpool and City contrasts sharply with their failure to win in all but one of seven games against teams around them this season.

"It's certainly not the way we'd prefer to do it but we have to take picking up points where we can," admitted Stearman.

"We'd like to pick up points from the teams in and around us because that would help us more."

City are expected to leave £27m new signing Dzeko — who cost £2.6m more than Wolves' entire probable starting line-up — on the bench.

Either way, Stearman won't mind.

"We haven't seen too much of him," confessed the Wolverhampton-born stopper. "If he plays, it will be good to pit my wits against someone with such a big price tag.

"But the backroom staff have done their research, so we know a bit about him."

From what he's seen, Stearman believes Wolves will have enough on their plate coping with 13-goal Tevez.

"Tevez is the dangerman — anyone who's watched Man City in the Premier League will know how much of an influential member of their team he is and how well he's done," he said.

"I think they missed him when they came to us earlier in the season. He's certainly a threat if he's in the team."

Whatever the price tag though, there's no chance of Wolves' players getting overawed by their opponents these days.

"When we came into the Premier League, there might have been a feeling of us being a little starstruck maybe," said Stearman.

"We were somewhat of an unknown quantity — we didn't have many players who'd been here before.

"But the whole team has grown and proved to everyone we deserve to be here.

"Now we have the nucleus of a squad that's stayed up and got results.

"We're very confident that this is a better squad than last season."

Wolves are aiming to complete an unlikely double against the high-fliers after winning 2-1 at Molineux, their first since 1960-61.

Stearman recovered from conceding a penalty against Emmanuel Adebayor to produce an excellent performance that day.

And it's one of his many attributes that he's able to put mistakes behind him quickly.

"You've got to put those things behind you," he said.

"You just have to make sure the next thing you do is good."

Stearman felt the sharp end of boss Mick McCarthy's tongue after couple of errors in the 2-1 defeat to Wigan on Boxing Day.

But the 23-year-old has put that firmly behind him to reel off almost flawless displays against Liverpool, West Ham and Chelsea.

"It comes with playing games — this is the first real run at centre half I've had for a couple of years," he said.

"The manager showed faith in me to put me back in there and hopefully I'm paying him back with good performances.

"It's a learning curve and you learn from your experiences. It's all about consistency."